


And When In Shadows

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Child Death, Gen, Isolation, Order 66, Sensory Deprivation, Torture, Trauma, Whump, Whumptober 2020, dark themes, mildly graphic, post-order 66 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:53:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26886181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt,It lies behind stars and under hills,And empty holes it fills,It comes first and follows after,Ends life, kills laughter.After Order 66, Obi-Wan Kenobi falls into the hands of highly prejudiced Imperials.Written for Whumptober 2020Day 7 - Enemy to Caretaker
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Vader
Series: Whumptober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 11
Kudos: 118





	And When In Shadows

Obi-Wan should never have left Tatooine.

He had not intended to—but he had heard rumors of a group of Jedi younglings and Padawans alone in the galaxy with the Empire right on their heels, and he had not been able to sit still.

Obi-Wan wished he had been fooled by a lie.

 _He wished_.

Instead, he got to watch the truth of the rumors reach a terrible end as eight children were summarily executed by the Imperials for crimes against the government, shot neatly in the back one by one, not even the youngest and smallest of them giving in to fear—they had knelt with their heads high and defiance in their frightened eyes, and not one of them had screamed or cried.

The youngest had been, at most, six.

And none of them had given in to terror.

One had stared at Obi-Wan though, as he was executed, his eyes hanging on the former Master’s.

Obi-Wan had seen the light die in the boy’s eyes from where he was forced to kneel, watching, Force-inhibiting cuffs around his wrists and a noxious injection in his veins that made him weak-limbed and nauseous, and felt a new hole tear in his heart where he had thought he was too scarred to be hurt again.

The former General was dragged to a holding cell, gagged, bound at the ankles as well as his hands, and abandoned.

In total darkness.

Complete silence.

Without the Force.

Without the Force, but still able to feel all the _empty places_ where there had been bonds to so many— _so many._ Some of them had been small, just narrow strings holding him together to old friends—Garen, Reeft, Bant, Luminara, Kit Fisto, Plo Koon. Others had been one-sided, built from sheer interaction and even affection—Cody, Rex, Bull, Waxer, Bail Organa, Padmé Amidala. Satine. And some…some had run deep.

Yoda.

Ahsoka.

Anakin.

All gone. Yoda’s had gone silent by means of heavy shielding and vast distance. Ahsoka’s had been muted out during Order 66, and he had no way of knowing if she was dead or alive, and that uncertainty ate at him.

And Anakin’s was all burnt away like Anakin himself had been.

His former Padawan, his best friend, his brother—he had set psychological fire to the bond during the duel on Mustafar, only minutes before Obi-Wan had thrown Anakin to the lava and flames and let him burn.

He isn't sure if it was strength or weakness, that immolation.

Perhaps both.

Obi-Wan hurts, in the darkness.

And eventually, after he’s not sure how long, maybe an eternity, all that remains of him is the hurt.

Dark.

Hurt.

Dark.

Hurt.

Darkness and pain.

There’s nothing around him, he can’t even feel his own body anymore, not the pain in his wrists and legs, just the hollowed out broken places inside him where there used to be stars.

They drag him out after a second eternity.

Someone tells him that he was in there for three weeks, and even after they waste another two weeks “interrogating” him for information he doesn’t have or they don’t need, even after they’ve methodically filleted open the soles of his feet and injected him with substances that make him hallucinate and asphyxiate and vomit and temporarily go blind, even after they’ve left him alone with interrogation droids packed with enough needles and razors and probes to outfit a whole crew of intelligence agents, even after he’s been beaten and stripped and touched in ways he doesn’t want to think about—

Even after all of that, what _breaks_ him is when they haul him _back to the dark room_.

He opens his mouth and screams as they throw him inside, and then he can’t scream anymore because they’ve gagged him again and—in any case—somehow—making noise only serves to make him feel smaller and less substantial than ever.

He can sense his throat trembling and roaring itself hoarse before they get the gag in, but they’ve done something, drugged him, perhaps physically damaged his ears, and _he can’t hear himself_.

Or anything else.

Deprived of all his senses except grief.

Dark, dark, dark.

Weightlessness.

He knows he is bound and stiff but he can’t feel it.

If he were to guess, if he had a brain to guess with, he would think that he is not a person at all, but just a glimmer on the ground, some sort of wasting, aching amalgamation of the galaxy’s ruin.

It is dark.

Or is it?

Maybe it is nothing.

Or maybe, there is no it.

There is no darkness because there is nothing.

Utterly alone.

The holes inside him are not, in fact, holes, but the only tangible thing in the vast Nothing.

Nothing is nothing.

Agony is agony.

Therefore, the empty places inside him are not empty. They are anguish. _He_ is nothing, and everything else is nothing, too.

Except the hurt.

The door is flung open and a nightmare walks in.

Obi-Wan doesn’t flinch.

He doesn’t do anything.

He’s much too thin and much too stiff when the strong arms lift him, hold him, carry him out of the darkness and into the light.

He is deposited on a bed, untied, gently massaged to return warmth and blood flow to his damaged muscles and joints.

He is bathed, fed, watered.

Cleaned and brushed.

Massaged again.

Drugged to sleep, and when he wakes, he is stronger and healthier.

And then it starts over.

It happens again and again and again…

He hates it.

Every waking moment is proof that he exists.

The universe turns inside out, and once again he is real and present, and the empty places inside him are empty, and the friction between the two is unbearable.

Finally, he wakes, and he knows somehow that he is finished being drugged and coddled.

The nightmare takes a seat beside his sickbed and tentatively takes one of his hands in its own huge, gloved hands. It takes wheezing, rattling breath. Another. And another.

Obi-Wan, hating himself and his name and the room and the lights but very determinedly not thinking about the other place—bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad—

He lets the nightmare hold his hand, and he waits for it to say something, to prove that it isn’t empty.

He expects rage.

Cruelty.

Questions.

Blame.

He does not expect what he gets, which is a rasping, mechanical voice choking out: “…Not like this. Please. Obi-Wan…Master… _please_. Don’t leave me, not this way.” 


End file.
